Prosper Australia

photo credit: mdumlao98

Prime Minister Rudd’s $10bn ‘economic security strategy’ is another blinkered response. A decade of record economic growth has done little for the aussie battler. Record prices for iron ore have cascaded into the deepest pockets in the nation, where hard working miners pay thousands of dollars in rent, soaking up much of the gains. David Ricardo’s ‘Law of Rent’ will always see economic growth benefit land owners disproportionately to hard working individuals.

The announcement of the First Home Owner Grants pt2 (FHOG) is simply shocking. Yet again the property lobby is being propped up. Just when prospective buyers were hoping land prices would fall, the ALP gives another handout to those who already own a piece of this precious earth.

This will ensure the recession is deeper and longer than feared because the cause of the world financial meltdown, the land price bubble, has been given a helping hand again!

If everyone receives $14,000 then land prices go up $14,000 at least. In 2001, when the scheme was first announced, land and housing prices jumped $32,000.

The result will see a new and enhanced wealth gap. Younger generations will again be left paying record rents, already more than twice what any other generation has paid. Julia Gillard’s ‘War on Poverty’ (announced January 08) has become just that in namesake.

Today we hear of the need for Breakfast Clubs in schools. Now that rents will be maintained at sky high levels, less money will be available for food and other necessities. One wonders whether the credibility of politician’s will reach a record low in the current climate.

Today’s report on the Melbourne 2030 urban growth boundary cries out for a comment from Prosper Australia members. Melbourne University academic Rob Moodie rolled out the usual suspects in recommending that dwellings per hectare improve on the urban fringe, that there be a smaller, more intense concentration of transport hubs and lastly, the latest bureaucratic decree, that all new developments have a set percentage of housing set aside for low income people.

What is needed is an analysis on council rating systems and how this has contributed to today’s problems. CIV rating penalises home building and encourages the waste of land, in effect subsidising the land banking speculators that have held ‘doughnut’ suburbs like Braybrook and Sunshine to ransom. That’s the real supply issue. If 20% of all new developments are restrained for low income earners, what will stop the developer upping the price for the other 80% to cover this profit shortfall?
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Tuesday evenings in May, 6.15pm - 8pm, starting May 1st

Ever wanted to read between the lines of the newspaper? Arm yourself with the tools of modern warfare as Karl Fitzgerald takes you through the key understandings required to ‘follow the money’.

Topics covered:

• Economic terminology - the basic framework
• Economic History via: The Classical - Neo-Classical - Neo-Liberal dichotomy
• Wealth gap - why is it expanding?
• Climate change - can economics address it?
• Housing Affordability - why are we paying so much and what can we do about it?
• International perspective - WTO/IMF

Interactive games and multimedia footage will complement the learning in an attempt to keep the sessions as upbeat and interactive as possible.

Ask yourself why we have it drilled into us that economics is ‘the dismal science’? If we spend our entire life chasing the ‘elusive dollar’ then it makes sense to understand the rules to that game.

The first session is the most important. If you miss another session that is understandable, but we will be building on the first session’s knowledgebase throughout the course.

Cost: Gold coin donation appreciated

Bookings essential